Chapter 6 - THE PARKING LOT
Mateo pointed his phone at the building like a reporter chasing a scandal.
“We came here peacefully,” he told his livestream. “We just want Elena to stop hiding and take responsibility.”
Nadia sighed. “They want footage.”
“Then let’s give them boring footage.”
We did not go outside.
Security told them they were not permitted upstairs.
Ten minutes later, Diego called my office line.
I answered on speaker.
“Elena, please come down.”
“No.”
“I’m trying to save our marriage.”
“You tried to move forty-eight thousand dollars from my company.”
Silence.
Then: “That was for us.”
“For us?”
“My family needs help. Once we’re married, we’re supposed to build together.”
“You forged my signature.”
“I didn’t forge anything.”
“Then who did?”
Another pause.
Rosa’s voice came faintly through his phone. “Tell her she owes this family after humiliating us.”
I almost smiled.
“Is your mother standing there?”
Diego whispered something away from the phone.
Then he returned. “Elena, I need you to sign a temporary financial authorization so we can clean up this mess.”
Nadia mouthed, Record this.
The call already was being preserved through the office system.
“What authorization?” I asked.
“A simple one. Nothing dangerous.”
“For six hundred thousand dollars?”
His breathing changed.
That was enough.
He knew.
“Elena,” he said, suddenly sharp, “you don’t understand what happens if that loan doesn’t close.”
“Then explain it.”
He hung up.
Outside, Mateo’s livestream ended.
Security watched the three of them walk back toward their SUV.
Then the parking-lot camera caught something strange.
Rosa handed Diego the folder.
Diego opened it.
Inside was a copy of my passport.
And beneath it, clearly visible through the camera’s zoom, was my father’s death certificate.
Nadia went still.
“Why would they need that?” I asked.
She did not answer immediately.
May you like
When she finally did, her voice was low.
“To prove you inherited something.”
